Vrijdag 3 februari 2012 verzorgt Gert Hekma een lezing: ‘What goes wrong with sex in the Netherlands?’ in het Universiteitstheater van de Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA), Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, room 3.01, van 16.00 tot 17.00 uur. Aansluitend geeft UvA Pride (de roze tak van de UvA) haar maandelijkse borrel in het nabijgelegen Atrium Café Binnengasthuis. De aankondiging van de lezing is in het Engels: ik neem aan de voertaal tijdens de lezing.
Gert Hekma: What goes wrong with sex in The Netherlands?
The Dutch consider themselves to be the most liberated people in the world. But there are multiple problems with this positive self-characterization. Let me give some examples. Why are young queers so eager to embrace straight norms of homosexuality, why do they take so much time to come out and why have so many of them tried to commit suicide? Why do we presume that kids under the age of 16 years are innocent and have no sexuality? Why have so many adult gays and lesbians psychic problems? And why is there so much verbal and physical violence in streets, school yards and sport fields against homosexuality?
Such sexual problems are not restrained to male and female homosexuals: some 20% of the straight people suffers from physical and another 20% from psychological troubles regarding sexuality according to Rutgers/WPF research – probably the tip of an iceberg, as many simply stopped seeking sexual pleasures. The Dutch have been successful in the international promotion of the idea that their schools offer comprehensive sex education, but the reality is much less bright than the image. Moral panics regarding pedophilia, bestiality or prostitution show another problematic side of Dutch liberalism. These data indicate according to Gert Hekma that something is deeply wrong with Dutch sexuality. He will outline what exactly the problem is according to him and where we could find the solution.
Gert Hekma teaches sexuality and gender in the social sciences at the UvA. His main research at the ARC-GS is in the field of sociology and history of homosexuality. He wrote and edited many books such as ‘Homoseksualiteit in Nederland van 1730 tot de moderne tijd’ (2004), ‘ABC van perversies’ (2009), (with Theo van der Meer) ‘Bewaar me voor de waanzin van het recht’ (2011), a special section of Sexualities on Queer Netherlands (2011) and ‘A Cultural History of Sexuality in the Modern Age’ (2011). He contributed to both SCP reports on social acceptance of homosexuality ‘Gewoon doen’ (2006) and ‘Steeds gewoner, nooit gewoon’ (2010) and wrote with Laurens Buijs and Jan Willem Duyvendak the report on antigay violence in Amsterdam: ‘Als ze maar van me afblijven’ (2009). For academic journals and both regular and gay media he wrote many articles on these topics.
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